Yacht Brokerage

Why List Your Yacht With Us

Sailonline has made a collaboration agreement of with several brokerage houses to facilitate the listing and the sale of charter vessels and other boats.

Michel Benarrosh, Sailonline founder, has been the renowned Commodore of one of the world’s largest US associations of charter yacht owners for 10 years. His in-depth knowledge in the field of charter boats is extensive and unique. Whether you are selling or buying a charter yacht, you are in fact often selling or buying not only a boat but also a business. Michel’s experience will definitely help you make more informed decisions in your specialized transactions. Michel is a licensed and bonded yacht broker in the State of Florida. Read Michel's clients's testimonials

HOW WE FACILITATE THE COMPLEX PROCESS OF A YACHT SALE

Selling a yacht takes time, commitment and a great deal of money, but it doesn’t all have to be yours.Here is what we offer: simply make it a “breeze” to sell your yacht.

You can receive comprehensive guidance on pricing the yacht, knowing whom your competitors are and improvements that can give you “the edge” on the competition. We have a database with information on over 120,000 boats that have been sold since 1998 with actual selling prices and full specs for each boat. We will reference this information and guide you in pricing your yacht accordingly. This ensures the greatest possibility that you will get top-dollar for your yacht and that you will sell it as quickly as possible.

We can advertise your vessel in major international yachting publications and on worldwide yacht sales websites at our expense. Advertising and marketing know-how is probably the most important factor in selling a yacht quickly and for the best price. Our advertising dollars become part of the marketing effort required to properly market your boat to a wider audience than you may be able to reach on your own. Our advertising has drawn thousands of prospective buyers to us in the past few years. We will utilize this database of available buyers to market and sell your yacht.

We coordinate the paperwork and keep all parties informed and stress-free. For most transactions there can be as many as 23 forms needed at closing (27 for foreign-flagged vessels) and each form must be executed in a specific order to successfully trigger the next sequence of events. The professional format of our Purchase Agreement has been in use over 75 years and is designed to protect your interests and minimize litigation.

We provide professional service to represented parties throughout the yacht sales transaction in the following areas:

Advertising production/placement

Arrangement of showings

Qualifying potential buyers

Coordination of lien searches, and title-transfer preparation

Financing resources

Insurance advice

Refit advice

Registration and documentation advice

Delivery coordination

We insulate you from the other party. We will act as your professional “gatekeeper”. This gives you time and flexibility to respond to questions and offers. Experienced negotiators recommend avoiding contact with the “adversary” – “Any information you give out can and will be used against you!”… Consider this: In the event of a dispute, would you use your adversary’s lawyer or would you protect yourself by retaining your own representation? In our experience, many sellers think they are helping get the boat sold by being readily available to answer questions…and this is a good thing under controlled situations. But we have seen more deals sunk because of sellers “talking too much” than for any other reason…

We use our time. Not yours.Selling the yacht yourself can and will be a hassle. Think about this: Sometimes, the people who make appointments to see yachts are “no-shows”. Many will act like real buyers and request free boat rides. A high-percentage of these types are only interested in an “education” about your boat and do not care if they waste many hours or days of your time. Unqualified buyers (a.k.a. “dreamers”) will consume a lot of your time only to ask for “seller financing” at the last minute because they don’t really have any money. Know that most of all “seller-financing” deals fall apart within one year and the seller is left with a boat that has not been maintained. Or these dreamers will make low offers that can be as much as 50% of your asking price. We have many hundreds of hours of training to handle these time-wasters. This can save you lots of frustrationEven we, as professionals, can still get mislead on occasion, but if it happens, we wasted our time, not yours.

You get advice and help to get your yacht ready to sell.Certain upgrades make sense to do in order to get the yacht “show-ready”. Cosmetic-type refits usually pay the best dividends. They will help get the yacht sold sooner and you can usually recoup your refit-investment or a multiple of the investment. However, some mechanical work is not necessary to complete a sea trial, and we do not usually recommend it unnecessarily.

Florida “Use Tax” Exemption.Florida is the “Yacht Supermarket to the World”. If you want maximum exposure to qualified buyers, this is the place to be. There are often more yacht-buyers walking Florida’s docks than anywhere else in the world. You are legally exempt from the 6% Florida Use Tax if you list your yacht with a Florida Registered Dealer and do not use the boat in Florida. If, on the other hand, you bring the yacht to Florida and the tax has not been paid and you try to sell the yacht yourself, then the 6% Use Tax is immediately due (before you sell it!). Similarly, if the yacht is in Florida and listed with an out-of-state non-registered broker then the Use Tax is immediately due and payable. Do not risk having your yacht seized for non-payment of the tax. Penalties are 100% of the tax plus interest. So, a $100,000 yacht would owe $12,000 plus interest. List with a Florida Registered Dealer. Also, under Florida law, any yacht lying in Florida, sold without a Florida registered dealer, is immediately taxable with no chance for Sales and Use Tax exemption. If a Florida Registered Dealer handles the sale, then the buyer has a number of legal ways to be exempt from this 6% tax, a precious information that the Department of Revenue will never volunteer. They do not want you to know the loopholes. This helps get “marginal deals” get done. You have to know the nuances of the law and our observation, after supervising many brokers, is that it takes many years for the average broker to fully comprehend the complex and ever-changing tax code. Peace of mind at no extra charge. The commission remains the same whether it is split two ways or ten ways. It does not cost a penny more to hire a licensed broker to represent your interests and both the selling agent and the listing agent work for you. If the yacht is not sold then you owe nothing.